Just after hitting a new all time high of above $1815 in spot gold, the CME immediately sent out a notice to members advising that gold margins for Tier 1 members were increasing by 22% for both initial and maintenance positions, from $4,500 to $5,500. Unfortunately for the CME, this predetermined move was telegraphed to the market weeks ago, and with rumor 57 out of 22 finally turning out correct, this latest move only managed to push gold down modestly, and at last check was once again trading above $1,800. Just like all central bank interventions, which now have a half life between 1 hour and 4 days max, so this latest exchange attempt to subdue prices will fail spectacularly. Naturally, just like in the case of silver, this will merely embolden the CME to proceed with hike after hike, which in turn will kill speculative elements while merely reinforcing the strong hands. End result: in one month gold will be above $2,000 with almost 100% certainty.

In addition, the CME also hiked CHF futures by 443%, Yen futures by 25%, Ruble futures by 36%, as well as TEN, UBE and I3. The only margins that were cut were those of Uranium which dropped from 1320/1200 to 990/900 for initial/maintenance.

It all depends on who has fresh cash and how their other positions are levered....Look, I've seen stuff like this before, Ag not so long ago. Au has gone parabolic, tread lightly with your tradable assets, as for the real stuff, sit back and watch the show, accumalate on their knock down, my gut tells me that Au will retest (and pass with flying colors) $1700

That Brent/WTI spread is fucking unbelieveable. Right now I'm printing a ratio of 1.28! I'm seriously tempted to jump in on the compression trade, but there's no liquid options for Brent over here, so I'm holding back, for now.

I'd supplement by stating that it's a transition from paper to real. Physical stores of many things are gaining in value, albeit in a less visible way than PMs. The purchasing power transfer to PMs will lend to a second phase, in which scarcity premiums for staples will skyrocket as the dislocation from the currency transition sets in. Purchasing power wins the day post the Big Reset.

I'm not a trader, and leave it to others to collect those arbitrage gains. As an 'accumulater', however, I am very comfortable with the stockpile of physical things within a sand wedge of where I'm currently sitting.

New reality is right. The return of real currency is not the bubble...what it's replacing is.

Yes, it's a transition from paper to real. What we're seeing now is the decoupling from the old reality to the new reality.

TPTB are sending a clear signal to people that the new value is gold. Value only exists within the human mind. They're training the human animal to devalue paper and to value gold. Like in animal farm, Two legs good, four legs bad.

Sure the premiums for staples are through the roof, but did you notice that paper clips aren't available at any price? God knows what kind of paperwork is coming down the line from the secret government!

Watching the price action in gold for the past couple of weeks has been really funny. While Obama and his BFF Boehner were putting on a show to distract Americans in order to pick their pockets, the world has decided to step in and fuck them over by driving up the price of gold. Justice is being served!

A week ago I might have agreed with you. But today's action shows a complete decoupling of the HUI from the broad equities markets. (And about bloody time, too!) I'm thinking there's not going to be much more weak-hand-flushing going on any time soon in the gold market.

All the same be careful. These crooks will stop at nothing. Don't over leverage. What the CME is doing is attempting to put on a show for the average guy who has started to look into golds direction due to headlines but does not fully understand it's drivers yet. Gold has gone CRAZY (Real money does in this enviorment). JPM and Goldman raised the outlook for gold for this very purpose I believe. They wanted to cram GLD full of sheeple and smack them across the face to teach the sheeple a lesson for even looking at gold. Only 1-1.5% of the American people really understand golds role. Lets just hope enough of the "newbies" don't give a crap and are hedging disaster as they should!

I've been carrying a '90 Morgan in my pocket for the last five years. Whenever a cashier at the supermarket or hardware store does the rudimentary authenticity test on a 50- or 100-dollar bill, I tell them, "it's all fake." I then show them the Morgan and tell them that it's probably the first real money they've seen all day.

BTW, if you just carry that Morgan in your pocket for a few weeks, it'll polish itself and develop a gleaming shine.

I used to carry a Mexican Liberdad in my wallet. But every so often when I'd flip it open, the Molly Ringwaldesque bubblegum popping cashier would roll her eyes at me "like he really needs that big a condom!".

So now I carry a 1/10oz eagle doing a better job at impression management.

When silver is 100 bucks an ounce maybe I'll switch back to the Liberdad.

I have been carrying a $100,000,000,000,000 Zim note in my wallet for the last few years for shock value. Tonight I gave it to our local version of Robo who sorely needed a lesson in real value and told him to take it home and Google it. Now if I can just remember where I stashed the other 19 when I bought them on eBay and they would still buy a cab ride in Harare.....

Hmmmm.... 1.25 lbs x 16 x 28 =560 grams.... 526 grams of gold (roughly) 2.75"long by 1.5" circumference.... I think they would be laughing more so than screaming. Unless of course they knew it was solid gold, and they thought that it was just the "root" of the stash, then they would see 12" and a Bugatti Veyron in their future.

Tyler,... OK, this margin increase has been telegraphed for some time and I think this is just the beginning. What jumped out in your post was the 443% increase in margin rates on the Swiss Franc. I found that absolutely unbelievable (but, hey, we live in unbelievable times). I checked the CME/CBOT site and found no reference to that kind of hike. The CME release you posted with the short article lists SF futures going from 3780 intial to 5400 intial (with corresponding mnt. margin hike for specs.). This is a 43% hike not a 443% hike....